He will never forget the first final even if he experienced it, or rather suffered and then cursed it, from the stands due to a knee (the left) that had cracked. Carlo Ancelotti was at the Olimpico and who knows what he thought when Liverpool made Liedholm and Falcao’s Roma cry on penalties. Never, that terrible night, would he have imagined that he would take so many revenges. A lifetime later, forty years round and round, he raises the seventh Champions League to the sky, the fifth as a coach, the third in Madrid and he does it at Wembley where Mancini’s Italy three years ago had overturned the predictions right in the face of the English.
Now another Italian triumphs in the Temple after a hard night in which our hero also sees witches. And in the end the first simple gesture is to rush to kiss and hug his wife Mariann. «I’m not the best in the world. I train for evenings like this. It seems like a dream and I hope I don’t wake up…”. Carletto is an example, the king of the Cup. No one like him, the only one to have hit the mark the scudetto in each of the five championships most prestigious in Europe even if only in Spain has it granted an encore.
Ancelotti took a lot of revenge after that sultry night in silenced Rome, thanks to Sacchi who wanted him at Milan and convinced him to become a coach and also thanks to Berlusconi. The first Champions on the bench made it safe on the Rossoneri bench, on penalties against Juve, making the team and especially the old fans who had mocked and insulted him cry. They didn’t understand the greatness of Carlo, the calm leader, the simplifier, the man who manages to stay on top of the world as if he were in bed at home. Inside it is a fire, but outside it transmits serenity, trust and conviction. He rarely gets agitated. He doesn’t even do it at Wembley, during the long minutes in which his team shrinks in front of the yellow and blacks of Dortmund, more aggressive, quicker, more lively, more vertical. More dangerous. His Real Madrid seems to have slipped into a black hole. But he never dies and comes out at a distance in a relentless crescendo: Carvajal scores and Vinicius closes the score. Charles the Fifth, like no other in the world.
Ancelotti is so good that he made the demanding Spanish audience understand that there is not just one way to win. That you can get excited even by defending yourself, that you have to grit your teeth when things don’t work out. As in the first half of this painful final, against the unleashed Dortmund. Every night has the story of him. Madrid’s is uphill at the start. But Ancelotti finds a way to get out of it. Aware that the experience would take its toll on him. Real Madrid hasn’t lost a final since 1981. And they’re celebrating this time too. Another night from Carletto who, after Atalanta’s feat, brings prestige to Italy. On stage, after having hugged his boys one by one, especially Toni Kroos in the farewell passage, he also holds Zidane tightly, who Juve didn’t know where to let him play. Another story. A lifetime ago.
The king raises his eyebrow and enjoys it. Cfive Champions on the bench, like no other. Madrid is at his feet. How far he has come with the right attitude and the peasant wisdom of the lower Emilian area. He wasn’t always so smart. He didn’t want Baggio at Parma. Now the champions love him. There isn’t one who doesn’t want to be trained by him. Next will be Mbappé, the best of all. And with him, Real, with its 15 Champions League on its trophy case, will immediately attack the sixteenth.
Ancelotti has changed his principles, he has improved as a coach, but at the base there has always remained the wisdom of the wise, calm, witty, funny man. Humble. Sacchi, who knows him better than anyone, never stops saying it: «Before being a great technician, Carletto is a great man». His style has never changed over the years. When he won and also when he lost.
